Bridge problem...

Gridley · Post by **Gridley** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:39 am

Did I mention I am interested in working with bridges...?

This is probably a real RTFM question, but I'm at a bit of a loss:

Here's my bridge objects in SB (I've used several default bridge objects, both from the "bridge objects" category and the "general objects" category):

And here's what they look like in the sim:

The bridges are those four little gray squares. They retain none of the heading and size info I input into the object properties. They seem to display fine in sb, just not in the bgl...

Any input?

Using 2.05

Thanks!
sg

Luis Sa · Post by **Luis Sa** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:36 am

Hello,

I can not help as I do not know the objects. I think you know about "locked objects" but I think this is not the problem. Objects work fine for me. May be is something you are missing. You can allways send a small SBP and I can try.

As you like brdges here is one I made for my Portugal Terrain. This is a view in June 10, which is the national day of Portugal. On that day the cables become iluminated at night with the colors of our national flag (red and green):

The bridge is Vasco da Gama and it crosses river Tagus in Lisbon. It was built in 1998 and then it was the longer in Europe. Here is a view from the other end:

The bridge was made as 6 or 7 segments that I had to position with extremely care. Here is a view of the project where you can see the aircraft (Show Aircraft):

And with Zoom at maximum you can see that the footprints are a litle bit displaced:

However if you look to the top down view in FS, the displacement is acceptable. You can see a small artifact on the way roads join:

Regards, Luis

Gridley · Post by **Gridley** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:33 pm

Well, I'm trying to do exactly as you describe, using ConcreteBridge1A (ramp) and ConcreteBridge1B (span) in the "General Bridges" category, but I've used others in the General ojects category...

Should I be entering size info in the General tab, under the bias settings, or length/width in the "library object" tab, or both?

Thanks!
sg

Luis Sa · Post by **Luis Sa** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:34 pm

Hi,

In order to create the footprint you can do this:

- place the object with heading = 0

- change viw to top-down

- position your aircraft over one corner of the object

- In SB set "Show Aircraft"

- resize the symbol in SB until the corner of the symbol coincides with the aircraft cross

- take note of the width and lenght or simply press the "Update" coomand so that the values are copied into objects.txt

Regards, Luis

Gridley · Post by **Gridley** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:43 pm

That's exactly what it did, Luis...as you can see in the first pic I posted, the footprint in SB doesn't translate to what I see in the sim...so I must be doing something wrong...let me run through it again...

Best,
sg

PS> Thanks for your rapid and thoughtful help - every time! It really is a pleasure working with you and your software!

boleyd · Post by **boleyd** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 1:16 am

<blockquote id="quote">citação:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Mensagem original de boleyd
 Luis,
The artifact is an expansion joint placed by Bill Gates to allow for expansion and contraction of the roadway due to temperature variations.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

rbrown3rd · Post by **rbrown3rd** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:07 am

Scott exported his bridge project and sent it to me. I appended it into a new project and recompiled it but I too get the short bridge sections instead of long spans.

Gridley · Post by **Gridley** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:07 am

Sorry to be a pain, Luis - I'm having no luck here.

No matter what bridge I try - I've tried about 10 different bridges from the stock objects.txt in sbyyy.zip that I just downloaded...I orient and size the footprint in SB, click the "update" button, then compile that single object, and I get a true-north facing stock sized object in the sim.

Missing something here. Is there a description on how to place bridges in a tutorial somewhere?

When I click "update" what exactly is supposed to change? objects.txt? Because the date stamp on my objects.txt is not changing...

Thanks again!

sg

Horst · Post by **Horst** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:39 am

Hello Scott,
I think your object are placed.

Do a small example:
For example: GeneralBridges/ConcreteBridge1a and 1b

A)Import some line or polygon for orientation
B)Use object tool
C)In General be sure in Geographic Position AGL is on (“mesh clinging”). Then use Object Type Library object. Use the bottom there.
D)You are now in Library object part now
E)If you use the bridge I was writing, you will see it has a length and width of 50
F)Take 1a object the ramp – say ok
G)Now move the object in the correct position – inside the square you have a point – hold it and move it – with the point between you can rotate
H)Now place in the same way the span (1b) and an other ramp (1a) object
I)Fit them together correct
J)Controll your small work inside FS. When you need more spans, you have to place more of them.
Do not touch the other possible settings.

I think you will have a small bridge now.

I hope it helps.
Kind regards
Horst

Gridley · Post by **Gridley** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:44 am

Thanks for the input, Horst! So, just to clarify, are you saying that with concrete bridge 1b, I need to place as many 50m segments as is necessary to cross the water? I need to manually align all of them, one by one? That changing the footprint of each span by dragging the corners won't make for a longer span?

that's the assumption i was working under...still, all of my pieces are facing true north.

I'll give it a go following your instructions though.

Best,
sg

Horst · Post by **Horst** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:24 am

Scott,
Yes, an object is an individual thing.
You can not make from a small house a big house.
You only place the object, you need the spans.

Maybe there is a way to have this automatic.
To look for the points, when VTP is crossing LWM, and then having a ramp, all the spans and another ramp. And they all fit together correct.

But most of the guys using their own individual bridges. Because every bridge in nature is a unique building.
When this automatic function is easy for Luis, maybe we can have it.

But today with all the commercial addons covering a huge county size, I think it is better to think about: How we can move objects easy, for example bridges, to get a nice result for the addons we buy, and we already have? But this is an other theme.

Kind regards
Horst

Lurch · Post by **Lurch** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:59 pm

How do you make a bridge curve gradually to the left or right?

Gridley · Post by **Gridley** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:11 pm

I made my final bridge out of many (MANY!) short segments. For curves, I simply gradually rotated segments to make the bend, then made sure the overlap was convincing enough (no visible gap or corner protrusion). Most curved bridges are done with curved objects via GMax, I believe.

Best,
sg

Horst · Post by **Horst** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:41 am

Hello Scott,
I am confused!
Are you using the generic bridge objects?
Do you want to do bridges like microsft?

They are done as VTP line.

Draw a line, and for the properties use VTP2/assembled and the numbers between 1213 and 1261.

(Open maybe a BR…bgl file in world\scenery\.. and have a look to the proberties)

I am very sorry, not to mention it. I thought you have some individual bridge objects (Like Luis example).

But do not delete your work, it is the only way to have exactly the bridge type you selected.

Otherwise you have to edit the terrain.cfg.
The terrain.cfg is using variants.

Regards
Horst

Gridley · Post by **Gridley** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:52 am

I'm doing all kinds of bridges, Horst!

First, I wanted to just relocate some default ms objects, so I decompiled the bridges bgl to get the GUIDs of all MS's bridge objects, then used SceneGenX to search another decompiles bridges.bgl for objects within a certain radius. Once I had the GUID, I could edit SBuilder's objects.txt, and place the object with SB. Worked fabulous. Until I realized that the model fs has made for one particular bridge is not correct.

Then, I decided to build that bridge from parts. Using a bunch of segments of gen_bridge_07 (I think), positiioned as Luis described, I was able to make a convincing replacement as described in my reply to the other person...

Thus, I've succeeded in my efforts in both directions...

But to follow up with your commment, with the autogen style VTP bridges, the lines need to be just two points, correct? This would not work for a curved bridge?

Also, the number of types of bridges seems very limited in FS. For example, many of the bridges in Florida are very high arching spans. There's nothing equivalant that I've found.

One other thing - is there a way to add an elevated segment in the middle of a long flat bridge?

Thanks,
sg